North Fork Table and Inn, one of Long Island’s premier restaurants, recently switched to an a la carte menu, giving patrons new options to enjoy the autumn menu. READ
Tag: North Fork Table and Inn
KATHARINE SCHROEDER FILE PHOTO | North Fork Table & Inn owners Gerry Hayden and his wife, Claudia Fleming-Hayden, inside the Southold restaurant in a 2011 photo.
Local chefs and artisans will band together to help raise money for Gerry Hayden, the longtime executive chef and co-owner of Southold’s North Fork Table & Inn, who was diagnosed in 2011 with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“A Love Shared,” scheduled for Oct. 13 at 8 Hands Farm in Cutchogue, will include a wine and amuse-bouche tasting followed by an intimate, family-style dinner prepared by noted North Fork chefs, including Lia Fallon of The Riverhead Project and Keith Luce, of Greenport’s The Square. Local shops and artisans — including Catapano Dairy Farm in Peconic and Southold’s A Taste of the North Fork — will provide hors d’oeuvres.
Event organizers hope to raise $75,000 to help provide quality-of-life care for Mr. Hayden, who is 48, and also to support ALS research.
“The event was sparked by an outpouring from the community around me, to help me with my quest to eradicate ALS permanently,” Mr. Hayden wrote in an e-mail. “It was my idea to start a farmers market at the restaurant and have only the farmers we use at the restaurant to share and promote the farm-to-table philosophy.”
Maria McBride, an event planner with Peconic Productions who is helping coordinate “A Love Shared,” said she began talking with Mr. Hayden earlier this year about putting together an event. “If Gerry can get up each day and face his health challenges with humor and grit, then we knew we could certainly create a memorable party to raise money to support Gerry’s fight with ALS,” she said.
ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a rapidly progressing, incurable and fatal neuromuscular disease characterized by progressive muscle weakness that results in paralysis, according to the Stony Brook University School of Medicine website.
As the phrenic nerve to the diaphragm muscles fails, patients lose the ability to breathe without ventilator support.
Mr. Hayden, who has lost the use of his hands to the disease, said he plans to publish a memoir about how cooking and food have molded him. The book will also include recipes.
In the meantime, Mr. Hayden said, there are three things he’d like to raise awareness for, three things close to his heart: funding for ALS research, the North Fork’s artisan farming community and the tight-knit, talented community of Long Island chefs he belongs to.
“‘A Love Shared’ is my mantra now,” he said. “The phrase itself is how I would liked to be remembered.”
Tickets for “A Love Shared” cost $250 each; only 200 are available.
To purchase tickets or make a donation, visit aloveshared.com or leave a message with Peconic Productions at 631-862-5414.
CARRIE MILLER PHOTO | Stephan Bogardus of North Fork Table & Inn will take his cooking game to the small screen next month on an episode of Food Network’s ‘Chopped.’
If you watch the popular Food Network contest show “Chopped,” you’ll have a local chef to root for in an episode airing next month.
Stephan Bogardus of Southold, chef de cuisine at The North Fork Table & Inn, will appear in an episode set to air at 10 p.m. March 12.
Mr. Bogardus, 25, learned his way around the kitchen working at several East End eateries. The chef, who speaks four languages, originally planned on attending law school, but was not accepted into any good schools, he said. On the advice of another chef, he attended the Culinary Institute of America, graduating in 2009.
Not long after, he made his was back to the North Fork.
Mr. Bogardus said Gerry Hayden, executive chef of The North Fork Table & Inn, recommended him to “Chopped” producers.
The show pits four chefs against each other competing for a chance to win $10,000. The challenge is to take a mystery basket of ingredients and turn them into dishes that are judged on creativity, presentation, and taste — with minimal time to plan and execute — a description of the show reads.
We sat down with Mr. Bogardus this week to discuss his career and his experience on the show:
Q. What would you say your specialty is?
A. What we have here at the North Fork Table & Inn, American cuisine and comfort food. Fresh local ingredients, they naturally display the pristine of the North Fork.
Q. Were you able to bring any North Fork flare to any of your dishes?
A. Absolutely. I like to feel being a native and a local out here, I brought a lot of personality and Long Island pride to the show for sure.
Q. One of the ingredients in the first round was beef tongue, had you ever worked with it before?
A. I make smoked beef tongue here at the restaurant. We purchased all the cows from Russell McCall at McCall Ranch this year, and so every two weeks we received a whole cow, that had the tongue in it. So I always did some kind of cure. I was quite aware of the ingredient.
Q. What was the most challenging aspect of the competition?
A. The timing is really, really hard. I had practiced a couple of times with twenty-minute increments and mystery baskets and things, it goes so much faster when you are in the studio.
It was hands down the most challenging 20 minutes of my life. Not only having to do what they ask you, to put together the best plate against these talented individuals, then there are cameras and lights and cords running across the floor you had to jump over. Something they did in the pantry, they put ingredients all over the place. It’s not all organized and together. There’s a lot of hunting and pecking that you have to do to assemble.
Q. Do you think your young age was an asset, or did it hinder your performance?
A. It was definitely a double-edged sword. It was great because I feel like a lot of the competitors underestimated me, but it was also challenging because my level of experience did not match most others. I would consider myself the least experienced of all the individuals.
Q. How did it feel to be selected as a contestant?
A. I knew I was being considered to be a contestant, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be selected. I’m just a 25-year-old from Southold, I never thought I’d be on TV.
It was a life-changing experience. It was truly an honor to be chosen as a competitor. There was really an acknowledgment toward years of hard work and experience, on a national level, which is pretty sweet.
Sunday night was filled with custard, cold squid, cookies, and corn pancakes at Colicchio & Sons in New York City as restaurant industry leaders gathered to celebrate long-time friend Gerry Hayden.
The large contingency of star chefs were raising money in the fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the fatal illness known most commonly as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Mr. Hayden, the chef at North Fork Table and Inn, was diagnosed with ALS in January of 2011. Since then, he has raised more than $100,000 toward his own medical care and others who share his plight with his website and with the help of some of the same top-knotch chefs and restauranteurs he’s known and worked alongside during his years cooking in New York.
The dinner event cost $250 for attendees to taste cutting-edge culinary treats and rub elbows with the masters who made them before the crowd gathered to hear Mr. Hayden’s old friends both roast him and boast about him. The speakers described Mr. Hayden as a hardworking, passionate, witty and “respectful as hell” chef.
Here is a run-down of delectable dishes served on Sunday:
Charlie Palmer’s colorful rhubarb terrine with pistachio cream and mini baba was a feast for the eyes, resembling a Christmas tree bauble.
Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar & Grill designed a delectable goat cheese custard with sweet sugar snap peas, fava beans and lemon oil.
Dante Boccuzzi of DANTE & Ginko Restaurants delighted guests with a BBQ tuna and foie gras sushi “push up” pops.
Bobby Flay and Paul DelFavero of Mesa Grill in Las Vegas brought some flavor with crispy blue corn lobster tacos and pickled habanero relish.
Wylie Dufresne of wd50 concocted a cold squid salad with celery and black olives he said was inspired by Gerry Hayden.
Mark Ladner of Del Posto got creative with his cutting edge “meatball sausage” sandwich. It’s a meatball, it’s a sausage — it’s a meatball sausage.
David Burke of David Burke Townhouse invoked memories of the River Cafe ,where he said the pastrami salmon he put on mini corn pancakes was born.
Rick Moonen of RM Seafood dove deep with his presentation of kushi oysters with coconut lime mignonette, cucumbers and super green phytoplankton pearls.
And Sherry Yard of Spago’s table was stacked with twenty types of treats she baked for her cookie extravaganza.
GIANNA VOLPE PHOTO | Colicchio and Sons in New York City was packed Sunday with star chefs looking to help out an old friend from Southold.